Lightning

Cloud, by New Zealand-based designer Richard Clarkson, is an interactive lamp designed to mimic a thundercloud. It brings the outside inside, providing an audiovisual show that looks and sounds like thunder and lightning ... but thankfully, there's no rain. Read More

Although the iPhone and iPad may indeed pack a whole plethora of features, they still lack a plain ol' USB port. This means that they can't share files with a Mac or PC via a regular flash drive. The iStick, however, isn't regular. According to its creators, it's the world's first Lightning-to-USB flash drive. Read More

A scientific team in China fortuitously recorded the first optical spectrum of an example of ball lightning. The ball lightning, which was accompanied by a cloud to ground lightning strike, appears to have consisted at least partially of vaporized soil from the location of the strike. While ball lightning may result from a variety of sources, this observation provides considerable evidence that the vaporized silicon explanation is valid, although possibly not unique. Read More

There are many subjects more interesting than concrete. But the substance is key to structures all over the world. Present concrete recycling methods yield degraded – and inefficient – results. A group of German researchers have taken it upon themselves to dramatically improve on those methods, and the secret to their approach is truly electric. Read More

Thought that title might get your attention, but shooting lightning bolts down laser beams is just what a device being developed at the Picatinny Arsenal military research facility in New Jersey is designed to do. Known as a Laser-Induced Plasma Channel, or LIPC, the device would fry targets that conduct electricity better that the air or ground that surrounds them by steering lightning bolts down a plasma pathway created by laser beams. Read More

If you listen to your elders, electricity is a dangerous, often fatal, medium that shouldn't be toyed with. If, like Rob Flickenger, you decide to completely ignore such sage counsel, then electricity is awesome and a whole bunch of fun – especially if you build yourself a working battery-powered Tesla Gun that handles some 20,000-volts and 2,000 amps of current and shoots out bolts of lightning! Read More

Calling all Tesla fans! Electrical engineer Greg Leyh and his team at the Lightning on Demand organization (LOD) in California are raising the funds necessary to build the world's largest twin Tesla coils (ten stories high, about 120 ft/37 m) that will be capable of generating electric arcs more than 200 feet (60 m) long. Dubbed the "Lightning Foundry," the project currently consists of a working 1:12 scale prototype. When complete, a towering pair of coils will fill a football field-sized area with massive electric bolts that researchers hope will reveal some of the mysteries of this beautiful but deadly force. Read More

Protecting aircraft from lightning strikes probably isn't the first use of nanotechnology that springs to mind, but that's exactly what Fraunhofer researchers hope to achieve by combining carbon nanotubes with carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs). Read More

According to a study recently conducted at the University of Missouri, more and more people are paying for the chance to see tornados up close and personal. Mostly within the months of April through June, up to 1,200 tornadoes occur in the US every year. A large percentage of those storms occur in an area known as Tornado Alley, which is centered around the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas – although it does extend east as far as Ohio, and north as far as North Dakota. Storm chasing tour outfits, many of which are run by or employ experienced meteorologists, will drive groups of paying “tornado tourists” across this region, in the hopes of witnessing severe weather firsthand. Read More